Is the United States too hot to handle the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup?

NEW YORK -- With less than a year to go until the U.S. cohosts the tournament with Mexico and Canada, the heat and humidity experienced by teams at the Club World Cup has set alarm bells ringing within the game that it might just be a case of wrong place and wrong time for a summer tournament in North America.

High-profile players and coaches, senior figures at global players' union FIFPRO and climate experts have all raised concerns about the risks and even dangers that will accompany next year's 48-team World Cup, which will be staged at the height of summer between June 11 and July 19.

The 2022 Men's World Cup in Qatar, originally planned as a northern hemisphere summer tournament when hosting rights were awarded in 2010, was eventually staged across November and December to avoid players and spectators being exposed to punishing June/July temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the 2026 tournament will go ahead as scheduled, despite the prospect of similarly unbearable conditions. However, FIFA is now under pressure to reevaluate plans for next year's World Cup and ensure that key issues -- in particular, kickoff times and host cities with tough summer climates -- are addressed to avoid putting the well-being of players at risk.

"We clearly believe that from a health and safety perspective, this [extreme heat] is something that must take priority over commercial interests with regards to the safety of the players," Alexander Bielefeld, FIFPRO director of policy and strategic relations, said on a conference call about extreme heat at the Club World Cup.

"Heat conditions are not happening in a vacuum. The debate on extreme heat is not happening in a vacuum. It's actually quite foreseeable."

'I would not go out and have a game at 2 p.m.'

How difficult is it to play football in temperatures so hot that most people wouldn't even consider taking a short walk around the block?

At the 1994 World Cup, the last one hosted in the U.S., the Group E fixture between Mexico and the Republic of Ireland earned notoriety for being the hottest game in World Cup history. Played in Orlando, Florida with a midday kickoff, temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and some Irish players even wore baseball caps during the prematch national anthems to protect themselves from the heat.

"It was horrendous," former Ireland and Manchester United defender Denis Irwin told ESPN. "It was 117 degrees Fahrenheit at pitch level, and the heat and humidity made it incredibly difficult to concentrate.

"We knew it was going to be hot and we actually trained in wet suits to try to help us acclimatize, which would never happen now, but it was the hottest I had ever been on a football pitch. It was probably dangerous to play in those conditions."

Should players be exposed to such extreme conditions now, when the game is much more in tune with sports science?

According to FIFPRO, three games during the Club World Cup -- Paris Saint-Germain vs. Atletico Madrid in Pasadena, California; Chelsea against Esperance in Philadelphia; and Benfica vs. Bayern Munich in Charlotte, North Carolina -- should have been suspended or even postponed because conditions went beyond their threshold of 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit) on the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature gauge (WBGT). (The gauge is a measure of heat stress in direct sunlight, accounting for air temperature, humidity, wind speed, sun angle, and cloud cover.)

"According to our position, these games should have been postponed to a better place in the day and, if not available [another slot], then rescheduled," FIFPRO medical director, Dr. Vincent Gouttebarge said.

FIFA's WBGT threshold is 32 degrees C (89.6 degrees F), at which point they allow for one cooling/drinks break halfway through each half while MLS sets its threshold at 29 (84.2). (For the Club World Cup, FIFA have allowed one cooling break midway through each half, regardless of that WBGT threshold.)

"I don't think I have ever played in such heat," Benfica forward Andreas Schjelderup said after playing against Bayern Munich in Group C on June 24, when the WBGT hit 29.2 (85). "I don't think it's healthy, to be honest, but I managed to get through it."

The first semifinal between Chelsea and Fluminense in New Jersey strayed close to the 28 (82.4) threshold, registering a WBGT figure of 27.9 at the 3 p.m. ET kickoff. ESPN contacted FIFA to ask whether they have a threshold at which games should be halted due to excessive heat, but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.

Based on temperature and humidity data, FIFPRO has identified six venues at the 2026 World Cup -- Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City and Miami in the U.S., plus Monterrey, Mexico -- as posing an "extremely high risk" of heat-stress injury to players -- which includes heat stroke and heat exhaustion -- with a further three regarded as being "very high risk."

In such conditions, according to FIFPRO's Gouttebarge, players risk their core temperature exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius), where "you don't sweat anymore, you have a lack of muscle control, can barely walk, your cognitive process is affected and, in the worst case, you can lose consciousness."

Of the "extremely high risk" host cities, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston benefit from covered stadia with climate control/air-conditioning inside the arena, but stadia in Kansas City, Miami and Monterrey are unprotected from the elements. Boston, Philadelphia and Guadalajara, Mexico, are the "very high-risk" venues which again do not have roof cover or climate control.

ESPN contacted FIFA to ask whether 2026 World Cup 2026 fixtures could be reallocated to ensure that more venues with roofs/heat control stage games, but did not receive a response.

FIFPRO's data, based on the WBGT gauge, only covers potential risk at afternoon and evening kickoffs, but there is an expectation that some games will start as early as midday to suit European broadcast markets, especially with four games a day scheduled on some dates during the group stage.

"I would not, especially in the more southern cities, say at midday, 2 p.m., go out there and have a game," Dan Vecellio, an expert in climate science and human health and professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, told ESPN. "If they could do something where maybe you played games at 7 a.m., 10 a.m. and then waited until 6 to 9 p.m. or something like that, to break away from the hottest part of the day, that would make most sense."

Games kicking off at 7 a.m. next summer is extremely unlikely -- despite the appeal to broadcasters in Europe and Asia -- but FIFPRO has already urged FIFA to follow the MLS model of games in Miami only being scheduled for evening kickoffs. "We will use common sense arguments," FIFPRO general secretary Alex Phillips said. "We can use the MLS protocols -- they don't play matches at midday in Florida, for example, and haven't done for a number of years."

"They should absolutely do that," former Ireland defender Irwin said about evening kickoffs in Miami. "It's bad enough playing at night when it's hot, but it would make a huge difference not to play under direct sunlight."

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With 104 games to be crammed into 39 days at the 2026 World Cup, ensuring that every fixture is scheduled at a time that considers the well-being of the players, as well as suiting global television audiences, will be a logistical impossibility for FIFA.

Aside from the issue of heat, severe weather such as thunderstorms is also a regular disruption in the U.S. when it comes to summer sporting events. Several Club World Cup games were delayed or halted by thunderstorms, with Chelsea's round-of-16 tie against Benfica in Charlotte halted for over two hours, and Real Madrid's news conference ahead of the semifinal against PSG was canceled due to their flight from Florida being delayed by weather.

On the same evening, the New York Yankees baseball game against Seattle Mariners in New York was held up for 35 minutes by thunderstorms. It's a fact of life in the U.S., but with the World Cup needing to deploy a daily four-game schedule in the group stages, the risk of delays -- both to games and travel -- is an issue that has been made clear during the Club World Cup. It's also not one that has an obvious way to mitigate all climate concerns.

Unless FIFA takes the unlikely option of early-morning kickoffs -- impractical for supporters and players -- some games will kick off in early afternoon and some will be played in searing heat.

"[The 2026 World Cup] is almost a perfect storm where FIFA has decided to massively expand the competition, pushing it to 104 matches, which means that it's extremely likely that many of those matches are going to intersect with periods of dangerous weather," Peter Crisp from environmental advocacy group Fossil Free Football told the German media outlet Deutsche Welle. "FIFA needs to think seriously about revising the protocol to shift kickoff times to safer periods of the day if that's needed."

ESPN contacted FIFA to ask whether kickoff times will be scheduled to avoid excessive heat during daytime hours, but did not receive a response.

'If the games were played in the evening, it would be better for the spectacle'

The group stages of the Club World Cup coincided with a meteorological phenomenon called a "heat dome," when a high-pressure area builds up within a jet stream and the air descends towards the surface and gets compressed towards the ground. In other words, it gets really hot and stays hot.

During the "heat dome" period in the U.S. this summer, between June 15 and 30, seven of the 11 host cities hit the red zone of "extreme risk" by recording WBGT measurements above 28, with Washington, D.C. posting the highest figure of 29.3.

Chelsea's players were forced to cut short training in Philadelphia due to the heat after initially attempting to practice in the shaded areas of the pitch, and when Borussia Dortmund played Mamelodi Sundowns in Cincinnati, the conditions were worse.

"Our subs watched the first half from inside the locker room to avoid the blazing sun," Dortmund coach Niko Kovac said. "I've never seen that before, but in this heat, it absolutely makes sense.

"We had [fans] in order to cool the players down. We had them waiting in the dressing room with the air-conditioning.

"We played two times in Cincinnati. The first time it was 12 o'clock, the second time it was 3 p.m. and on the pitch we had temperatures of around about 45 degrees [Celsius, or 113 degrees Fahrenheit]. When the temperature is 45 degrees, this is very hard for anyone, but the players, they must play these games."

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When Juventus faced Real Madrid in their round-of-16 tie in Miami, the heat and humidity proved so debilitating that coach Igor Tudor said he had several players asking to be substituted. "The conditions were really difficult today," Tudor said. "Ten players asked me to be replaced. They were really tired."

Even goalkeepers have found the conditions difficult at the Club World Cup, with Real Madrid's Thibaut Courtois calling for evening kickoffs rather than noon or afternoon starts.

"It is warm and it is not easy to play," Courtois told reporters after Real's quarterfinal win against Dortmund in New Jersey, which had a 4 p.m. kickoff. "If the games were played in the evening, it would be better for the spectacle."

It would be misleading to suggest that the summer temperatures in North America pose a unique risk to players at the World Cup. Climate and heat conditions became a significant issue ahead of Qatar 2022 due to the tournament being moved to the winter, but previous editions of the World Cup have been affected by heat.

Mexico's round-of-16 tie against the Netherlands at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil was halted for two three-minute cooling breaks due to temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Fortaleza, while the 1982 semifinal between France and West Germany in Seville, Spain, saw a peak temperature of 99 degrees Fahrenheit, despite the game kicking off at 9 p.m. local time.

When the 2030 World Cup is staged, with the majority of games being played in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, traditional June / July temperatures around and beyond 90 degrees Fahrenheit can be expected. But the combination of heat and humidity in the U.S. -- venues in Mexico at higher altitude won't be as impacted, for temperatures tend to cool as you climb further above sea level -- make the 2026 World Cup particularly problematic for those involved.

"There is a limit to what we [humans] can do," Vecellio said. "The body can only work so hard, can only dissipate so much heat away, and that limit goes down the more vigorous your exercise.

"And if you're outside, running 10 miles on a soccer field, for a 90-minute match, you're building up a whole lot more metabolic heat in addition to the environmental heat stress that you're taking on because of the heat, humidity and radiation outside.

"If we have more nighttime games where the sun goes down and the temperature starts to cool, I don't think there should be a concern for playing a World Cup in America next year -- as long as the right precautions are taken."

ESPN contacted FIFA to ask whether there will be a study or review of the heat concerns raised during the Club World Cup, but did not receive a response.